South Park and Society

South Park is a show that has been around as long as I can remember. When someone thinks of South Park it’s either love or hate feeling. The one thing that is cool about the show is that it is based on real current events, and exposes what some may call the harsh reality of the world we live in today. The way they present there material is from an over the top, vulgar, and debatable standpoints. I think that is what makes this show good. The fact that so many people hate it and the creators are always pushing the limits makes for some good television. It is essentially a satire in which the topic is exaggerated in a way to where it is exactly big time celebrities, current news, and social trends, can disagree with the content.

            A show like South Park is important because it shows alternative views. Only a few corporations, like time warner, today control the media today. South Park is one of the only cartoons that’s episodes are about current issues, for example just the other month they came out with a jersey shore episode. The episode makes all of the Jersey Shore characters look like idiots. I think it is making fun of the fact that those same characters became overnight celebrities in America. As sad as it is jersey shore is one of the biggest hit shows in our country. Many people would rather watch jersey shore on Thursday nights then watch tsunami coverage in japan. Here we have thousands of people trapped, suffering, and dying and people are watching Jersey Shore and Charlie Sheen.

            South Park is a rarity, not only because of its originality but it reminds me of the way media was presented back in the day. Back when people did not have television and Internet they would read the newspaper. Inside there would be cartoons, political cartoons would display a hidden message just like South Park. I would call South Park an evolved political cartoon in today’s society, though not all episodes are political they have to deal with big time celebrity’s, current news, and social trends. In a way South Park is a modern day political cartoon, to an extent, it’s an entertaining way to catch up on the news. South Park is a show that can last as long as television exists. It has a faithful following and a plot that goes with the wind. The only way I can ever see the show being cancelled is if there are issues with the network, producers, or creators.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Money doesn’t grow on trees, it grows in a factory. The global pool of money seems to be growing at a pace I can’t even fathom. With the population growing, the amount of money circulating increases. When I take into consideration all the different factors, like the trillions of dollars in savings right now, that is trillions of dollars that is not being used. It seems rational to me that, that number is only to increase with this recession, and that’s not even the worst part. The way to get out of the recession is for people to start spending money, not saving. If people begin spending all of the money then everyone will generate more revenue and create more jobs. The problem is, recession causes people to save, and the more people save the deeper into recession we fall into.

The world of banks and investors is more twisted up internally than when you look at it from the outside. It’s like when you see a gorgeous girl walking down the street you think

“Damn that girl is gorgeous”

Never do you take the time to think

“Wow she is gorgeous, but I wonder what she is like on the inside”

For all you know she could be a straight up murderer, in a sense that’s how the investing world is in a way. Here you see all of these people getting approved for loans, then if you stop and take the time to think about it you think

“How did tom get a loan, he moves furniture, and now he is approved to take out a loan for $400,000?”

It’s because the people handing out these loans like candy do not care if they get paid off or not, they just want to sell them to someone else to make fast cash. Who can blame them, I would do the same thing if I was pulling in over a million a year. It seems to be the regulations and requirements that are set that is the root of the problem.

                 Money isn’t everything, I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that one before. I think the quote should be

“money is 90% of everything”

For those people that are in jail for the rest of their life, it’s easy to say money isn’t everything, but for us living in the real world, cash is king. I can’t say there has ever been a time in my life where I have truly needed something and didn’t have the money for it. I’m not talking about a video game or some toy, I mean food, or a necessity needed to maintain well being. The point is that those times where you really do want something and can’t have it, it really sucks. Imagine the feeling of not being able to afford food, I can’t. The fact of the matter is when you have money, life is easier, there is still that other 10 percent that is important which is family, and friends. You may be asking me,

“Derek isn’t there more things to life, it can’t just be family, friends and money?”

The answer is no, yes there is more to life than family, friends, and money, but it’s nothing that money can’t buy. For example, yes it is important to spend time with your family and have fun with them, here is a simple solution. You purchase some plane tickets to Orlando for your whole family, fly down there, and go enjoy a nice vacation to Disney world. Lastly, I would like to end this

“A penny saved is a penny earned”-Benjamin Franklin

The Run

The gondola doors opened and it was time to shred again. It was a really busy day so me and my friends were riding the singles line. I let the man and his son go out first, then I grabbed my skies and waited for the rest of my friends to get off their gondolas.

“Where are we going, the front or back?” I said

“I don’t care, one of my friends shouted” it was really windy and cold at the top.

“Front”

someone yelled, I walked up the little hill and clipped into my skies. As I’m waiting for my friends to put there snowboards on I admired the view. You can see mountains as far as you look with frosty white tips, mountains behind mountains with the sky scattered with nimbus clouds and the sun beating on the snow.

Now my friends are all strapped up and it’s time to ride, were like a pack of wolves running through the woods. I’m in the back, still putting my hands through the loops on my poles just to make sure they don’t fall off. At the first intersection we go right as usual this is where I pull ahead, we fly down weaving in and out of people. This trail is a straight away till the end, I turn back and forth staying on my edges do I don’t looses and speed. There are a few knolls on the trail I get some air off of because I’m flying, there’s no radar gun but it feels like I at least hit 45 or 50. I get toward the bottom and zoom around a right hand turn, feeling like Boddy Miller in the Olympic medal round. There’s a real steep right turn going down toward the first park, I put on my breaks and slide to a stop spraying snow so high I can’t see in front of me. I look back to wait for my friends to catch up. I see two of them fly around the turn, make my way down the steep right and wait at the top of the first mini park. My friends come down one by one, we wait for a few riders to go then one by one drop down I go second.

The first jump is a little one, about a 10 footer, I throw a mute grab and land it smooth. The second jump is almost identical except for the fact you need a little more speed, I come into the second jump and do a blunt, which is where you cross your skies and grab the tail of you ski with the opposite hand. BOOM, I land a little too far down the landing, I can feel the pressure on my knees but I still land it alright. I stop to wait for the rest of my friends, just to make sure were all together and no one fell. I can see the park from here, I start down a small hill to flat and skate to get more speed. I jump off the lip of the hip and tweak a mute grab. I come down and land on the side of the hip perfectly, now I can see the park its right across the trail in front of me. I ride through to the entrance with my friends trailing, we stop at the top just to eye out what we want to do. My friend bob had been talking shit all day telling me how he’s better, even though I ski and he snowboards my competitive nature kicks in.

“let’s have a contest and settle this once and for all  bob” I say

“bring it on Gookin” he replied.

One of my friends Trent was riding with us.,

“Trent you judge who does better” it was on now I had to beat bob.

 I drop into the park, the first feature is a flat rail, I jump up and land perfectly then come out and land it switch. I’m in the zone and I was ahead of bob so I didn’t know how he was doing behind me. The next feature was a down rail, I carve over to the right and hop on, my skies slide in front of me and I slide off early landing switch again. I ski down to this perfect jump, I had been nailing 3’s on it all day, this is where I was going to beat bob. Bob cant 3 this step down, it’s about a 20 foot gap and a straight shot from the top of the knoll were on is perfect speed to hit the jump. I’m up first, my plan is to throw a 360 and tweak it out with a huge mute grab, didn’t happen that way.

I skate off and go into a tuck to get as much speed as possible, my head lifts and I can start to go up the jump, my body twists right and I throw my right shoulder around and the tail of my ski hits the lip of the jump. Now I am in the air, helpless, falling backwards and looking up at the sky.

 “Please don’t land on my head, please don’t get hurt”

 all of the thoughts are racing through my mind then boom I hit. Everything turns North Carolina blue but it’s a shiny shade. I’m sliding down the landing and open my eyes, I can’t see anything but blue, close them again and the same thing happens. After about 8 seconds the picture of the landing and the box to the right slowly fade the blue out. I lay there for a few seconds to take in what just happened then muster up the strength to climb up the landing and get my ski. The rest of the day is tough to remember as I go into the lodge I say

“Trent, I know this is going to sound stupid but what day is it”

“Gookin, its Wednesday this is the third time you have asked me that.”

                The rest of the day was tough to remember. I have that feeling of waking up from a dream, I get the main point, but I only remember certain random details that don’t seem to matter. Once I chilled out for a little bit and could remember what day it was I asked my friends

“Where is Chris?”

“Chris didn’t come to the mountain with us today”

They kept convincing me he was never with us, now I was really worried. I could have sworn we were riding with him all morning, but I believed them. After all I couldn’t even remember what day it was, the next morning Trent said.

“You know we were just kidding, Chris was with us yesterday.”

Dance With The Devil

The one sure thing about religion is that it is not sure thing. The basic religious understanding is that there is Heaven and Hell, good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell, to burn with the Devil. I personally do not know what to believe, I guess my opinion is always changing, and contradicting where I previously stood in my own personal debate. After hearing a story like the guy who all of a sudden, decided to confess a murder that had happened when he was a teenage makes me think, why? Why does he not remember confessing his murder to the police, he either is a huge mental case or there is something else to it. The devil could be behind it, or it could have nothing to do with the devil at all.

I think that there are good and bad people in the world, it has been, and will always be this way. You need to have many different types of people in the world to keep a steady equilibrium of good and bad people. Some may argue that this guy Randy is not necessarily a bad person because he is a murderer. I would have to disagree with that. I believe that if you a murderer than you are a bad person, once you take someone’s life, rape someone, or attempt to kill someone then BOOM, you’re a bad person. I do believe that there are people who do bad things but murder is just not one of them.

The reason I’m undecided on whether the devil is real or not may be because I never went to church, or maybe because I have never had an experience like one of those stories in the podcast. I’m talking about the stories where people were overcome by the Devil, and somehow saw some sort of illogical thinking as logical. How can a sane person just all of a sudden think it would be a good idea to kneel in front of a car and wait to be hit? I think that this guy was not happy with his life, or maybe shit tanked off his ass.

Weather the devil is real or fake, I don’t think it matters. To me it’s not the question of where you go after you die I ask, or spend any time worrying about. I like to wonder where I will go when I am alive, I guess that’s probably why most old people are religious. Old people are on there on the final stretch of their lives, they have nowhere else to go but church. It doesn’t matter is Heaven and Hell are real or fake. The whole Idea in Heaven and Hell does play important roles in our society because it keeps a lot of people sane, and gives people a reason to do good in this world. As long as we live there will always be people doing good, and people doing bad, so therefore there will always be belief in God and the Devil.    

10 Years From Now

It’s a Sunday, 11:00 am, tee time, and my brother and I are paired up with another gentleman to make a 3 person group. I introduce myself “Hi my names Derek.” The man looks at me and in a deep raspy voice, he says “Mike nice to meet you.” It sounded like he was a smoker, I noticed he had R32 irons with a Scotty Cameron putter that looks like its straight from the factory. Mike didn’t say much at first, he walked over next to the putting green and started taking practice swings while we waited for the group in front of us to finish up the first hole. Now it was out turn to tee off, I turned to mike and said, “Go ahead man, show us how it’s done.” “alright, but I’m not very good” he said back. I’m thinking in the back of my head, yea right I’ve heard this one before, another modest pro. This guy is wearing some fresh ass Nikes with an Under Armour golf shirt, Dockers, and has his black hair slicked back, dude is about to murder this ball. I reply back to him “don’t worry me and Nick aren’t good either” just to make him feel more comfortable. Mike walked over to the tee box and stuck his tee into the ground, he put his driver straight out in front of him with his arms extended, lining it up with the flag. I turn to my brother, “What are the chances of this guy making the green?” he turns to me, shaking his head and says “come on Derek, its 310 out, not a chance.” Mike pulls his club back and swings, he topped it, and it’s a worm burner about 100 yards down the middle of the fairway. “God dammit” he slams his club against the ground, I go next and slice it left, Nick cranks it 275 down the middle of the fairway. We all get in the cart and my brother hands me a bud light, to my surprise mike pulls a rolling rock out of his bag. “Where are you from” I ask him “I live in L.A but I grew up in new Hampshire” “No shit” I say, “we did too, where in New Hampshire?”  Manchester, I went to Memorial High School.” “Damn I went to West, what a small world” Nick said. “What brought you out to Vegas?” I ask him, he told us he was here on business. Mike looked at me and took a big swig of his beer and finished his first brew of the day, he said “I’m an inventor, have you here’d of the Holocomputer” “You invented that!?” I was very impressed that was cutting edge technology, the Holocomputer is a computer that looks like a flash drive and projects a hologram of a keyboard and screen that are touch sensitive where your finger is the mouse. At this point I’m pretty excited to be drinking beers, golfing, and shooting the shit with the inventor of the Holocomputer. We finish all 18 at about 2:30 I shot a 95 my brother shot an 80 and Mike, well Mike stopped keeping score after the 4^th hole.  The man just loves to golf witch I respected, after all it is the hardest sport in the world. We walk over to the clubhouse, Mike says “give me a call if you boys are ever in L.A” he hands us his business card and gets in a Lincoln town car. Nick and I hop in a cab, we get in our room “Where are the girls?” nick said “I don’t know but who cares, we’re in Vegas bro, let’s go chill by the pool and enjoy the rest of the day.  We get down to the pool and to no surprise both of our wives were down there, they were with another lady who looked older probably about mid to late 30’s. “this is Star, we met her shopping today and were going to go out to dinner with her and her husband tonight” my wife said. I’m thinking oh great I wanted to hit the casino with nick tonight and the girls will want to go see Circus Ole or some shit. “I’m Derek, Jen’s wife, nice too meet you” I shake her hand. Star is wearing a black g string bottom with a white top, she definitely has implants and has bleach blonde hair. Her belly button is pierced and has a pretty good body for her age, she’s not one of those older people that shouldn’t be wearing a bikini, she could pull it off. After lying out by the pool we go back to our room, turns out Star and her husband are also staying at the Palms. Jen and I go back up to our room to get ready, she says, “dress nice baby wear that suit with the black and green tie, I put it out on the bed” “ok honey” I replied, “why don’t you wear that sexy little white dress u bought yesterday” she walks out of the bathroom and she already has I on. “you didn’t have to tell me I can read your mind” she says smiling at me as she runs her hand through her hair. “Its 7:00 Nick and Sarah should be here, were meeting Star and her husband at Nove Italliano at 7:15” “hang on ill call Ni….” I’m interrupted by a knock on the door. We all take the elevator down to the restaurant, were here first, I go to the bathroom with my brother to watch my hands. The restaurant was real nice with marble sinks, I walk out of the bathroom and am shocked to see Star and her husband. I take a seat and say “hey mike, long time no see.” 

House on Loon Lake

When I first started listening to the story of the house on Loon Lake I was thinking these kids remind me alot of myself, throwing shit at cars and blowing up jack o lanterns. As I listened on I thought this was going to be some haunted house bullshit story, I don't believe in ghosts for one reason only, there not real! Once the podcast started talking about this abandoned house they broke into it reminded me of something very similar my two boys and me did this summer. As the summer was winding down and someone came up with the idea that we should all go camping before we go off to college. On a Friday night we drove up to lake winnipesaukee where this girl said she found a campground for all 16 of us teenagers. When we drove to the campground they said we had too many people and couldn't stay there. We ended up going to about 3 more till we found one that would let us stay, this was key because it was getting dark at this point and we would have been screwed if we couldn't find a place to stay. About 8 of us were there at this point, once the other half arrived the owner of the campground camp up with some bullshit excuse to make us leave saying there can only be 8 of us or something like that. I was fine with staying at the campsite, but all the girls were saying how we cant split up and it wont be the same blah blah. Eventually we took down our tents and hit the road again looking for somewhere to stay, personally I wanted to just park on the side of the road, go out in the woods, and do some real camping Bear Grill style, but it was dark and no one brought a flashlight. My friend was driving and my other friend was in the back seat with some chick he was with at the time. She said we might be able to stay at her cousins house on newfound lake like 15 minutes down the road, we were real desperate at this point so we agreed to go there. Her aunt said we can stay there, we showed up to this condo on a lake, at this point its me, my 2 best-friends, that girl, and her cousin. We are real bored at this point wanting to do something, anything, because we were ready to rage at a campsite with everyone from high school, the girls cousin tells us about an abandoned house down the road that is really sketchy and scary, I look at my boys and know there  down for whatever. We get a flashlight from her aunt, get in the car and drive 2 minutes down the road, bang a left and stop the car. This girl’s cousin tells us we need to park here and walk the rest of the way because the house across the street will call the cops if they see anyone in the house. We walk across the road and get into the yard of the abandoned house, it was real quiet and old both of my friends were being bitches so I had to walk in front but I couldn't use the flashlight incase the house across the street saw it and called the cops. As I walk around the side I am eyeing it out so see if I can see inside, but it’s too dark. Once we got to the back door it was game time I could hear the girls whispering how they didn't want to go in and thought I didn't come here to look around the yard. When I shined my light into the back door I could just see lots of old furniture covered in dust, I opened the door and walked in. No one was talking until the girls cousin said "OMG that door was closed last time I came here, someone must have opened it" that was all that needed to be said. Everyone booked shit out of the house. I left with them, having no interest chilling in there by myself.  After listening to the story of the house on Loon Lake it makes me wish I had stuck around to see if I could have found something in the house. Makes me want to go find another abandoned house and see what I can dig up who knows maybe I could make some dough.